Featured Articles

Hawaii is home to more than 9,000 professionals working in Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media (ADESM) occupations. They work in a variety of fields from film and video to advertising, publishing and fine art. Thanks to beautiful scenery and the efforts of the Hawaii Film Office, however, artists working in the entertainment industry stay pretty busy. Productions of all sizes come to Hawaii to shoot films, commercials, videos, and print campaigns. Just a few movies filmed here include Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Pearl Harbor, 50 First Dates, The Descendants, Tropic Thunder, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Survivor, Hawaii Five-0, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Hawaii is famous for stunning scenery, breathtaking sunsets, historic sites and natural wonders you just won’t find anywhere else. These are just a few reasons why filmmakers have flocked to Hawaii to shoot blockbuster films such as Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Pearl Harbor, 50 First Dates, The Descendants, Tropic Thunder, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Survivor, Hawaii Five-0, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Because Hollywood makes frequent trips to Hawaii and the Hawaii Film Office welcomes it with open arms, the film scene here is a healthy one. This means there are opportunities for people that work in all areas of film and video, this includes animation.

Hawaii is home to 20 Title IV degree-granting institutions. To become a Title IV school, an institution must meet five requirements. They must have (1) accreditation recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, (2) be in business for at least two years, (3) sign a participation agreement with the Department, (4) grant an associate's degree or higher, and (5) offer a program of at least 300 clock hours in length. Once these requirements have been met, the school becomes eligible for federal financial aid programs. This makes them more accessible to students with financial need.

The University of Southern California was established in 1880. It is home to 43,000 students enrolled in more than 200 undergraduate programs, 300-plus graduate programs, and more than 150 minors. The school features a variety of game design programs at multiple degree levels. USC Games offers a BA in Interactive Entertainment and an MFA in Interactive Media through the School of Cinematic Arts, and a BS in Computer Science (Games) and an MS in Computer Science with a Specialization in Game Development through Viterbi School of Engineering. Minors include Game Animation, Game Audio, Game Design, and Game Entrepreneurism.